Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/The Time Traveler's Wife/archive1

The Time Traveler's Wife

Nominator(s): Awadewit (talk) 17:02, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

• Featured article candidates/The Time Traveler's Wife/archive1

A book about time travel! What isn't fun about that? For those of you who would rather see the movie, it is coming out in August. :) Awadewit (talk) 17:02, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

• Well, I've never reviewed a book FAC, but I do have one question: What was the book's effect on the publishing house? From the page devoted to it and the description in this article, it appears to be a small publisher. I'd imagine that a big hit like this would have a large effect, but I didn't see anything in the article about it. Thanks! JKBrooks85 (talk) 11:25, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• I would imagine that as well, but I didn't find any details on that. I see from your userpage that you work for a newspaper. Do you have any further ideas on where to look for sources about MacAdam/Cage? I actually had a hard time finding sources for that article. Perhaps if we put our heads together, we could find some more material that would answer that question. Awadewit (talk) 16:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Leaning to support: In general, excellent work. The plot summary is particularly engaging and will make people want to buy the book (Abebooks, £1.00 or £1.65) I have a few queries, mostly small quibble but one or two on which I'd like to get your reactions before switching.

• "classified as both science fiction and romance" – classified formally, or just by readers?

• By reviewers. I don't think it is necessary to include this detail in the lead, though. Awadewit (talk) 16:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• Save a word: "scheduled to be released" → "scheduled for release"

• Done. Awadewit (talk) 16:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• This sentence reads awkwardly: "She wrote the last scene, in which Clare is waiting for Henry as an old woman, first, because it is the focal point of the novel." This is a case where the passive voice might actually improve the prose. Also the old woman description should be aligned with Clare not Henry. I suggest: "The last scene, in which Clare as an old woman is waiting for Henry, was written first, because it is the focal point of the novel." This would also avoid having three succesive sentences starting with "She..."

• Done. Awadewit (talk) 16:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• Image caption: "Audrey Niffenegger dyed her hair Clare-red to say "goodbye" to the novel after she had finished writing it." This information is not reflected anywhere in the text of the article. Without such a mention in the text, I wonder about the relevance of the image to this section.

• The idea was not to repeat information from the article. Also, at the end of the first paragraph there is a sentence that says: Despite the analogies to her own life in the book, Niffenegger has forcefully stated that Clare is not a self-portrait: "She's radically different. I am much more wilful and headstrong. ... I don't think I could go through a lifetime waiting for someone to appear, no matter how fascinating he was. Awadewit (talk) 16:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• Next image caption: "Clare has been compared to Penelope waiting for her Odysseus". Again, there is no reference in the text to this comparison, nor any indication who made it, nor any obvous relation to the "genre" section in which it is located.

• Again, the idea was that the caption information was new. This is one of the many literary allusions in the text and the one mentioned most frequently in the reviews. I thought this was excellent place to put it, because it is just an isolated factoid. Awadewit (talk) 16:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• Don't know why, I find this phrasing a little twee: "...whose wife is friends with Niffenegger,..." I think "whose wife is a friend of Niffenegger's" sound slightly more encyclopedic

• Done. Awadewit (talk) 16:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• "Michelle Griffin of The Age, for example,..." The "for example" is a bit intrusive, and not really necessary.

• Removed. Awadewit (talk) 16:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• Given the success of the book, I was somewhat unprepared for the critical emphasis in the last paragraph of the Reception section, where terms like "pedestrian", "contrived", "overall clumsiness", "ham-fisted", "long-winded" and "eruption of cliche" crowd in on each other and tend to squeeze out the positive comments. The impression is given of a rather poorly written book that succeeded because of its interesting premise. Is this intentional? Or might it be desirable to aim for a slightly different mix of comment from reviewers?

• The problem is that the negative reviewers are more specific in their criticisms. Positive reviewers tend to say something like "I was up all night reading the book" or "You should run out and buy this book" - comments that do not really explain what about the book was so good. However, even the good reviews tended to have something negative to say about Niffenegger's style. Awadewit (talk) 16:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

It is good that you are bringing modern novel articles to Wikipdia. May you long continue to do so. Brianboulton (talk) 14:14, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Awadewit (talk) 16:07, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

• Comments - sources look okay, links checked out with the link checker tool. (I wish I knew why The Times websites are returning false positives for being link dead with the link checker tool..) Ealdgyth - Talk 14:54, 14 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for all of your hard work, Ealdgyth! Awadewit (talk) 16:08, 14 June 2009 (UTC)